How To Find The Right Tempo For A Song

All modern sequencers make it easy to heighten your arrangements with subtle tempo variations, only these facilities are ofttimes ignored.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of creating music in a MIDI + Audio sequencer is that of 'feel'. No-ane knows exactly what 'experience' is, or where it comes from, but it's all too obvious when a track doesn't accept it. One of the nearly mysterious features of a expert live performance, for case, is that it can sustain your interest fifty-fifty when a band is playing the same riff or chord sequence over and over again. Program upwardly a repeating measure in a MIDI sequencer, nonetheless, and no thing how good it sounds the kickoff fourth dimension around, information technology doesn't take much repetition to make you switch off. And so what can you lot do about it?

Well, you could write less repetitive songs — but repetition is in the nature of pop music, and oftentimes for good reasons. So what is it that allows a live band to concord your attention fifty-fifty when they're playing one riff for 64 bars? The usual reply is that minute variations in the timing and dynamics of each player's performance make each measure slightly different, and that this somehow keeps it fresh as the song progresses (or doesn't progress!).

There's a lot of truth in this theory, simply information technology's not always that helpful when you're trying to create a compelling sequenced track. True, there are various ways to impose slight timing variations on a MIDI office, but replicating the style in which different band members follow each others' timing changes is extremely difficult, and it's a lot easier to cease up with a sloppy-sounding mess than a good groove. There'southward also the problem that very few sample libraries offer the kind of subtle variation in timbre and dynamics from annotation to annotation that real instrumentalists will produce in the form of a performance. In short, attempts to impose the 'feel' of a real functioning onto a MIDI sequence through pocket-size timing and dynamic variations are often partially successful at best. So what else tin can y'all practise to help?

Speed Controls

Perhaps information technology's a hangover from the drum machines of the '80s, mayhap it's the influence of dance music and sampled loops, or perhaps information technology'due south just laziness, simply many people still baulk at the idea of incorporating tempo changes into their sequences. This is a shame, because information technology'southward very piece of cake to do in most MIDI + Audio sequencers, and it can be enormously effective.

In that location are situations where tempo changes tin be considered fundamental to a piece of music. Instructions to change tempo are commonplace in classical music, while a lot of progressive rock songs bound around betwixt different tempos and fourth dimension signatures, and radical speeding up or slowing down is sometimes used equally a gimmick in novelty records (think 'Star Trekkin'). In this article, though, I'm going to concentrate primarily on the more subtle ways in which tempo changes can be used to add a certain something to sequence-based pop or rock songs.

As well every bit the modest tempo and dynamic variations I've already mentioned, many alive performances exhibit tempo variations on a larger scale, equally long as the band isn't playing to a click track. Information technology'south quite common, for example, for a band to take the chorus of a song several bpm faster than the verse, and it's equally natural to drop the tempo a little when going into a quieter part of the song. These are tempo changes that the casual listener won't e'er observe, but they have a real effect in making a chorus seem more urgent, or conversely, creating the impression that the band is holding some power in reserve. What's more, information technology's relatively easy to replicate these effects in a MIDI sequence, and reproducing or even exaggerating them can help to restore some of the 'feel' that's lost by using hard-quantised beats and a express palette of samples.

Creating Tempo Changes In Logic

Logic's Tempo Listing. Logic provides a number of unlike ways for entering or editing tempo information, but the Tempo Listing Editor and Tempo Graphic Editor are probably the most commonly used. Both of these tin can be accessed either via the Options menu or by clicking and holding the mouse push over the Sync button on the Ship Window.

The Tempo List Editor shows the bar/shell position of whatever existing tempo events, the tempo that is set at that position and the position of the issue in SMPTE time. Whatever of these entries can be edited manually. The easiest manner to enter a new tempo upshot exactly where you would like it is to movement the Vocal Position Line (SPL) to the required location and then to click on the Create button in the Tempo Listing Editor. Alternatively, selecting an upshot from the listing and then clicking on the Create button volition add a 2nd tempo event at the same location and this tin can then exist moved manually by editing the position details.

Logic's Tempo Graphic Editor. For creating gradual changes in tempo, the Tempo Graphic Editor is more suitable. Here, the pencil tool tin can be used to draw in tempo changes freehand or, for more gradual changes of tempo, the cross hairs tool can exist used. With the latter, click and release the mouse button where you want the tempo modify to first and then move the cross hairs to where the tempo change should cease. A serial of tempo events will be added between the two points. Again, these tin can exist edited graphically as required using other tools from the toolbox. The filigree setting inside this window dictates the resolution of the tempo events that are created. The Pen and Style settings simply alter the way in which the graph is displayed and have no influence on the actual tempo events themselves. Any tempo changes created graphically are also added to the Tempo Listing Editor.

While this tempo editing suffices for virtually uses, Logic provides a range of other useful tempo functions. For example, the Tempo Operations Window provides a ways of calculating tempo changes needed to get between two fourth dimension locations. In addition, Logic offers a Tempo Interpreter that can exist used in conjunction with the Tap Tempo primal command, and that allows the tempo to be set manually. John Walden

Cubase's Tempo Features

Most MIDI + Audio sequencers provide uncomplicated means of implementing both sudden changes in tempo and gradual speeding up or slowing down. I'm going to take Steinberg's Cubase as my main instance, but you lot tin find out how to exercise the aforementioned in your chosen sequencer by reading the appropriate box elsewhere in this article.

Cubase's Master Rail Graphic Editor. Cubase's Main Rails makes it easy to incorporate whatsoever tempo variation or fourth dimension signature change into aCubase Vocal. Clicking the Master button on the ship window ways that your vocal will follow the tempo data in the Principal Rails, and you can edit this in the Master Track Graphic Editor (surprise!). This is accessed using Apple+G (or Ctrl+M on the PC). The Master Runway Graphic Editor looks non unlike the Controller Editor, and tempo is edited in exactly the aforementioned way as MIDI controller information. The vertical axis of the Master Track Editor window shows tempo, represented past a blue block, which is plotted confronting bar number (top) and time (bottom) along the horizontal centrality.

To set up the Master Track, first decide what tempo you want your song to begin at. As you oasis't inserted whatsoever tempo changes however, the tempo map should but consist of a solid blue rectangle. If you lot choose the pencil tool from the tool palette and click the tiptop edge of this rectangle, yous should be able to drag it up or down to the desired value (as you do so, the exact tempo yous've chosen will be displayed in numeric form at the summit of the editor, to the right of the Quant box). With the Main button lit in the send window, your vocal should now play back at this tempo.

There are two main ways of actually entering tempo changes into the Chief Runway Editor. If you're trying to adapt the tempo of your song to follow pre-recorded audio or MIDI, you'll need to generate Hitpoints from your pre-recorded parts as described in Cubase Notes September and October 2001, and use those to trigger the tempo changes. For most purposes, all the same, information technology's easier to adjust the tempo using the pencil and the cross-hair tools from the tool palette. Clicking on whatever segment of the tempo line with the pencil tool allows you lot to suit that segment, while Pick-clicking (or Alt-clicking on the PC) splits the tempo at a given point. Holding downward Option (or Alt) and drawing a line with the cross-hair tool allows you to create smooth tempo ramps. The prophylactic tool erases splits in tempo, and you tin can use the pointer tool to select areas of your tempo map to copy, paste or delete.

Just as with MIDI information, the Snap and Quant values at the tiptop of the editor window prepare the fineness of the bar or beat divisions to which your actions are locked, and the minimum resolution and length (in beats) of an individual tempo segment. I find that if I'm working in a time signature of iv/4, say, information technology's rarely useful to have these set up to values finer than iv — in other words, it'south usually easiest to have tempo changes snap to the nearest beat out, and to be an exact number of beats in length.

Map Reading

Most sequencers requite yous a wealth of tools to manipulate the tempo of a sequence, and then how can you use these to improve the feel of your tracks? Well, they say there are many ways to pare a cat (although I don't know if they've actually tried), simply here are some suggestions which work for me in exercise.

I notice that there's little advantage in thinking about tempo changes until you've got a fairly clear thought of the structure of your song, and at least a rough sequenced backing runway — without a 'map' of the system in your caput, information technology's hard to picture where it needs to pick upwardly or lose speed. However, it'southward obviously worth deciding the final tempo map before you start recording whatever audio parts. Pre-recorded MIDI parts will, of course, follow any tempo changes you later impose, but audio parts recorded at a stock-still tempo are likely to be utterly useless if you later determine to mess with the speed! It's too worth thinking about whether you want to use any sample loops in your vocal and, if so, whether they can be made to follow tempo changes or not. If yous have a program such as Propellerhead Software's Recycle or Sonic Foundry'due south Acid, or a device such every bit Roland's VP9000 Variphrase sampler, it's possible to make loops follow changes in song tempo, but these processes piece of work better with some loops than with others.

Once you've got your sequenced arrangement sketched out, you can ofttimes get a crude idea of how its tempo map should work but by looking at which areas of your sequencer's conform page look busiest — information technology'southward a crude generalisation, only the most natural tempo variations are frequently those that follow the loudness and free energy of a rails. You can reinforce the ability of a big chorus or a sudden heavy-metallic middle eight past making it faster, and the delicacy of that stripped-down driblet in the system can exist brought home by a corresponding drop in the tempo. Of course, at that place are lots of exceptions to this principle, but it's a useful starting point.

Another crude generalisation which often turns out to be true of my ain material is that speeding up works all-time when it's washed gradually, whereas sudden tempo drops are usually more effective than steady slowdowns. For instance, in a state of affairs where a bridge leads into a busy chorus, which is then followed past a more restrained middle viii, I find it'due south nigh e'er most effective to increase the tempo gradually throughout both bridge and chorus rather than suddenly stepping it up at the start of each. Conversely, in this scenario I usually end up dropping the tempo quite suddenly at the end of the chorus, rather than having the chorus get-go brightly before dragging slowly down to the middle-eight tempo. The obvious exception to this rule is the utilize of rallentando as an effect in an system: it's quite common, for instance, to desire to reduce the tempo over the last few measures of a song before it stops altogether.

Creating Tempo Changes In Pro Tools

Pro Tools handles tempo in much the same way as Cubase does. Where Cubase has the Master Track containing the tempo information, Pro Tools has the Conductor Track, and a button on the transport bar selects whether this tempo rails is agile. To encounter the tempo information for a vocal in Pro Tools, click in the ruler display pop up in the Edit window and select Tempo. This adds the pinkish tempo rail to your rulers area, marking tempo changes along the timeline as small arrows with bpm values beside them. In a new song, the tempo ruler will be dimmed out and displaying 'Default: 120.00'. If y'all switch the Conductor off in the transport bar the brandish changes to 'Manual Tempo:' followed by any value y'all've set in the transport.

The Pro Tools Tempo ruler. At that place are a number of deportment in Pro Tools that result in tempo changes being entered in the tempo ruler, but the main 2 are transmission insertion, and employ of the Identify Crush control. To manually insert a tempo change, identify the cursor at the desired betoken in the timeline, then either choose Alter Tempo from the MIDI carte, or click the annotation icon adjacent to the tempo ruler. This will bring up a small box where you tin can verify the bar location, and enter the new bpm and notation-resolution values. Alternatively, when building a tempo map around existing imported or recorded audio, the Identify Beat command is used to specify some known locations, such as beat one of bar one. When yous do this, Pro Tools automatically figures out the tempos betwixt your specified points and enters them into the tempo ruler. Pro Tools' Vanquish Detective can take this to farthermost levels by analysing the sound and inserting further subtle changes into the tempo ruler. This is a peculiarly subtle style of using tempo changes, imprinting the audio'south groove or feel into the fabric of the song. Whatever the creation method, the resulting 'tempo event' arrows can be double-clicked to make changes, or can exist picked up and dragged. By clicking and dragging in the tempo ruler you can select areas of the tempo map to re-create or delete.

Pro Tools' mode of controlling tempo is very piece of cake to use, only, equally you may have spotted, one thing y'all tin't do easily is create a gradual speeding up or slowing down. It is possible to do this by creating a serial of gradual tempo changes close plenty to each other to sound like a smooth transition. A quicker method may be to import a tempo map from another sequencer, like Cubase, that tin quickly depict in a ramp from one tempo to some other. Save the sequence as a standard MIDI file, then import that into Pro Tools, making sure to choose to use the MIDI file's tempo map. Simon Price

In Practice

Then how tin we utilise these ideas in do? Well, allow'southward suppose nosotros accept a typical popular song consisting of an introduction followed by a double verse, bridge, chorus, a single poetry, bridge, chorus, a eye viii, another poetry, bridge, a double chorus and an catastrophe (run across Effigy 1). We've roughed out a sequenced version with some programmed drums, bass, piano and perchance a few other instruments, and it'southward sounding a bit flat and lifeless. Let'southward recall most some ways in which tempo changes tin work with the system to add some life to the track.

In order to give a sense of evolution to a song of this form, information technology's a common arrangement fox to get-go with a sparse instrumental base, adding instrumental parts in stages. The impact of the moment where a major instrumental role comes in can be reinforced by adjustment it with a subtle tempo change. For instance, let'south suppose that our intro and the kickoff one-half of the first verse are supported by a unproblematic percussion part, with a full drum kit coming in for the 2d half of the verse. A gradual increment in tempo during the build-upward to this drum entry tin can help to create a sense of expectation, and kicking the tempo up by some other couple of bpm at the moment where the drums come up in can brand the moment more than exciting.

The musical function of a bridge is to build up to the chorus, so it's very oft effective to comprise a gradual dispatch in tempo. If the bridge itself represents a drop in energy with respect to the verse, we could peg information technology dorsum by abruptly dropping a few bpm at the transition from verse to span. If we plotted the course of the song as a graph of energy or loudness or excitement over fourth dimension, the chorus would probably stand for the peak, so according to our crude rule of thumb, this should be the section with the fastest tempo. The increase in tempo over the bridge should be enough to ensure that this is the case, but I often find that the excitement and urgency of a chorus can be improved past continuing to increase the tempo every bit it progresses, before finally slackening off for the concluding couple of bars or dropping suddenly back to the verse tempo at the end.

Creating Tempo Changes In Sonar

There are several ways to change tempo in Sonar, merely the nearly popular is probably the Tempo View, accessed through the View carte or a taskbar icon. This graphically shows tempo confronting bars and beats, both of which can be zoomed if you lot want to make extremely fine or wide changes. Tools for modifying the tempo are the standard types yous find for editing any kind of MIDI parameter: cursor for selection, pencil for drawing in new tempo changes, line tool for drawing direct lines, eraser, and snap to grid. The snap options are particularly rich, as you can snap to markers, events, and clip boundaries too as standard musical values.

Sonar'due south Tempo View is backside the detached Tempo toolbar. About tempo editing occurs hither, either graphically or using an effect edit list. From this same window, you tin admission an event list of tempo changes. Here you can type in tempos equally well as the measures where they should occur, and also delete tempos. In virtually cases drawing in a few points and creating a line is easiest, simply sometimes the precision of numerical values is helpful. There are other windows related to tempo. Selecting Tempo Modify from the Insert menu brings up a window where you can enter a unmarried tempo change, modify the near contempo tempo, or click to tap tempo. Selecting Series Of Tempos brings upward a similar-looking window, merely which specifies a beginning and ending tempo range, the time range over which this change is to occur, and the maximum size of the pace (say, one bpm or a tenth of a BPM). This is a quick fashion to add tempo increases and decreases over item lengths of a tune. Incidentally, the Insert menu is where you besides add fourth dimension signature and meter changes. These bear on the entire song; y'all can't have different tracks with different meters.

Working solely with MIDI allows some other tempo-changing options, such equally Fit To Time. This stretches or shrinks a selection so that it ends at a specific time, and can modify either the events themselves, or the underlying tempo. You have the option to have audio follow along, although you might not want this in a state of affairs where, for instance, you were changing the tempo of music under narration. Another option, Fit To Improvisation, lets you create a tempo map (with measure and beat boundaries) to fit what yous've played.

When you change tempo, there's the issue of what happens with sound that'south already been recorded. Sonar offers two means to deal with this. 1 is merely to do a stretch-type digital audio edit. This is a good method if the audio doesn't change tempo during its length, and if you lot don't programme to change tempo any further. A more flexible option is to convert all audio into Groove Clips, a process that allows digital audio to follow tempo changes, even if they occur in the middle of a clip. While designed primarily with loop-based music in mind, this works for longer pieces of audio as well, if the markers are prepare correctly within the audio. Craig Anderton

Patching Up Holes

The cumulative effect of all these changes may have been a substantial increase in the pace of our song from the start to the end of the first chorus. This tin be alarming if yous're used to working at a fixed tempo, but use your ears rather than your eyes to decide whether it works. I've institute that some songs tin accommodate a total tempo increase of 15bpm or more over a section of this length, to the extent that yous still wouldn't know it was happening on a coincidental heed. Similarly, you tin can get away with quite sudden large drops in tempo every bit a busy chorus 'relaxes' back into a more than chilled-out verse or middle eight. If you practise find that a sudden speed change is jarring, you can often improve matters my modifying the arrangement to create a hole or a pause: a couple of beats' worth of silence or a hanging chord can mask a fairly abrupt transition between tempos.

While we're on the topic, it'southward worth remembering that pauses can be very handy musical devices in their own right, and altering the main song tempo in your sequencer is by far the easiest fashion of implementing them in a MIDI sequence. All you need to do is ensure that the granularity (ie. the Snap value) of the tempo map is sufficiently fine-grained to allow you lot to vary tempo on a annotation-past-note ground: to create a pause, drastically reduce the tempo for one vanquish where you lot desire the pause, then bring it back to normal, as shown in Effigy two.

Effigy 2. In this shut-upwards view, I've added a break at the end of the heart eight. This is achieved by of a sudden cutting the tempo for ane crush only. Should the tempo map for subsequent verses and choruses be the same as the get-go one? Most sequencers volition permit yous to simply copy and paste the tempo information from i part of a vocal to another, and enforcing consistency of tempo between, say, all the choruses ways that when it comes to recording audio you can nonetheless become abroad with just recording one chorus and and then pasting information technology to the others, if yous similar to piece of work that fashion. It's worth considering alternatives, however: in some cases yous can make an arrangement much more interesting by repeating the aforementioned compositional elements at different tempos, specially if you lot too vary the instrumentation. Take the double chorus at the end of our hypothetical song as an example. If we simply cut and paste the same tempo map over both halves of this chorus, the sudden slowdown is unlikely to work as well as it does when going from a chorus dorsum to a verse or a middle eight, so we're probable to need some kind of alternative.

Ane possibility is simply to eliminate the slowdown in the middle, making the final chorus even faster than previous efforts. Another is to remove the slowdown and brand the acceleration more than gradual. A more radical solution, however, would be to rearrange things so that the first part of this double chorus has a radically different arrangement — maybe, for example, a 'dropped' chorus with much reduced instrumentation, equally shown in Figure iii.

Creating Tempo Changes In Digital Performer

In Digital Performer it's the Conductor Track that handles changes of tempo and time signature. To make a sequence follow it you'll demand to have the Control Console's Tempo Drawer open up, and switch the Tempo Control pop-up to Conductor Rail. Data in the Conductor Rails can be viewed and edited in diverse means. Double-click on the Conductor Track in the Tracks window, for example, and the List Editor opens. By clicking its 'I' (insert) button you tin add a single tempo or meter (time signature) change — type in a location for it first of all, followed past any necessary data, stepping between text fields using Tab or the keypad's decimal betoken primal. Crush values for new tempos are selected from a popular-up list.

The Usher Track's defended Graphic Editor in Digital Performer. Tempo tin can exist displayed graphically, nonetheless, and this makes viewing and manipulating circuitous changes much easier. With the List Editor still open select Graphic Editor from the mini-carte du jour. The Conductor Track'southward very ain Graphic Editor appears, with data strips for Meter, Key and Marker, and the lower role of the window dedicated to tempo display. Tempo data is represented past tiny 'V' shapes, and the Bars display mode makes current tempo unambiguous, even when the most contempo tempo change event has scrolled out of the window. Grab a tempo effect and you can change its location or value — the edit resolution click box and pop-up carte (superlative right of the window) determine whether or non changes snap to a rhythmic filigree. For finer command, just select a tempo change consequence and all data relating to information technology then appears in the event info bar at the superlative of the window. Click on a field to edit information technology directly.

Switching Digital Performer's Tempo Control pop-up over to Conductor Rail is crucial if you intend to work with tempo changes in your sequence. DP is also adept at more complex manipulation of tempo. You could, for example, utilise DP's Tools whilst working in the Usher Track's graphic editor — select the pencil or reshape tools and you lot can draw in tempo changes. Free mode is keen for little tweaks, Straight Line mode lends itself to smooth changes, and you could try periodic or random waveforms for some serious tempo weirdness. There are more than sophisticated options, also, such as the Change Tempo dialogue box in the Change menu. In essence, you cull a Start and End fourth dimension, a Start and End tempo and one of several configurable curves, and then DP does the residue, writing possibly hundreds of private tempo events into the Conductor Track to produce a smooth tempo change.

The last words in tempo fluidity, though, are Adjust Beats and Tape Beats (again in the Change menu) — essential tools if y'all ever take to synchronise MIDI with audio tracks that change tempo. Adjust Beats allows yous to literally drag effectually bar or beat divisions in fourth dimension rulers, making it easy to produce a tempo 'map' to accompany a real, human drum kit runway. Record Beats achieves much the aforementioned matter, but here all you have to do is heed to the audio whilst borer a note on your MIDI controller along with information technology. In both cases DP produces as many tempo changes equally are necessary to keep everything perfectly in time. Robin Bigwood

Tempo Changes For Groove Quantising

The tempo-change facilities in most sequencers likewise provide an alternative manner of implementing so-called 'groove quantising' features. Nearly sequencers offer both a option of built-in quantisation templates and the ability to extract the timing information from drum loops, allowing you lot to lock your MIDI parts to a sampled beat — see Simon Millward's series on groove in SOS July and Baronial 2001 for more details. However, this can get complicated, and it may exist simpler to but create a shell-past-beat tempo map in your sequencer which is a bar or two in length, then copy and paste it as many times equally are necessary. When you lot use simple 'hard' quantisation, your MIDI notes should and so fall into line with the groove.

This is a surprisingly like shooting fish in a barrel fashion of changing the groove of your song, whether or non you're using a sampled loop equally a basis, and has several advantages over the groove quantising facilities in nigh sequencers. You can, for instance, apply it to create groove 'templates' as long or as brusque equally you like, allowing you lot to take (say) a groove that varies on the quaternary or eight bar. Using this technique you can easily create multi-department songs where each section has a different experience. Unlike the groove quantising facilities in almost sequencers, tempo maps apply by default to all MIDI parts across an system. This is less flexible than the facility to utilise groove quantising individually on a part-by-function basis as you tin in Cubase or Logic, but it's a lot quicker. It as well has the advantage that information technology's instantly and completely reversible — simply delete the tempo information or switch off the Master Track (in Cubase and Nuendo).

Part Of A Greater Whole

What all this underlines is that the ability to vary the song tempo is just one of many tools at your disposal when creating arrangements in modern MIDI + Audio sequencers, and that it works best when considered alongside all the others. Provided you practise it at the correct stage of the creative procedure, ie. before you lot've started tracking your audio parts, experimenting with tempo variation is easy, quick and completely not-destructive. It'due south one of those often-neglected things that can help to add that little flake extra to your tracks — with the added advantage that information technology volition confuse the hell out of anyone who tries to remix them...

Actual & Perceptual Changes: Another Perspective

Having read Sam's experiences with tempo changes, I decided to start applying his ideas in a rails I happened to be working on. After experimenting with tempo for a couple of evenings, I began to notice, for the commencement fourth dimension, that even if I kept the tempo admittedly abiding (and I have never had whatever cause to incertitude my hardware sequencer's timing) at that place would still seem to be variations in the tempo. In item, I noticed that the perceived tempo seemed to dull down as the primary beats of the bar became more finely subdivided (for case, if the hello-lid moved from eighths to 16ths), especially if unimportant shell divisions were stressed. It used to exist that I'd simply say such sections 'sounded lumpy' or that they 'dragged', and I'd try to remedy the situation past shifting the parts in fourth dimension relative to one another. However, I began to realise that what I was actually hearing was the musical organisation undesirably affecting the perceived tempo.

Guessing that live musicians would probably compensate for such perceived decreases in tempo with an actual tempo increase, I decided to try smoothing out the lumpy sections of my rails in the same way. After a bit more experimentation I came to the decision that information technology worked, and that I subjectively preferred the more perceptually consistent speed of the adjusted tempo map to the lumpiness of the entirely regular tempo map. Whether or not you find this to work with your ain music, I think it's important to realise that the perceived tempo doesn't slavishly follow the bpm value, even though the 2 are certainly related.

Another interesting affair I found the more I experimented with programming tempo changes was that the way I auditioned the tempo changes (for the purposes of evaluation) fabricated a real difference to how well the results turned out in the end. I noticed, for example, that listening only to very short sections of the track encouraged me to programme bpm changes which really sounded quite unnatural when the runway was listened to every bit a whole. I would therefore suggest that you listen to almost eight bars of the music before whatsoever contentious bpm alteration, even though this might seem unduly time-consuming. Too, I came to the conclusion that tapping my foot or moving to the music impaired my ability to judge the naturalness of the tempo map — I imagine that this was because such motions were adding an extra layer of rhythm to my perception of the runway, and that this reduced my sensitivity to the bodily rhythmic cues in the music. Mike Senior

Source: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/using-tempo-changes

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